Media Reaction To The Defeat…

Anyway, back to all things Arsenal and media reaction to the game hasn't been as bad as I thought. In all honesty I was expecting to see "Arsenal's season over!" but instead all I saw was praise for Hull and a match report about how the game panned out.

So if the media haven't over-reacted, then I certainly won't. I spoke yesterday about the need not to panic, and got some very interesting feedback from some of the regular readers, worth taking a read if you haven’t already. After coming back from the course today I’ve had a good read of what’s been said today and the thoughts of our manager and players alike.

I’ll start with what Arsene has said today:

“We gave them too much room for the first goal and we didn’t clear the ball on the second one. I believe that we have more a size problem in our defending than a quality problem. It’s not just the centre-backs who defend – as a team we are a bit short. Perhaps on a subconscious level we were thinking we would do it. I don’t fault the players for not wanting it but it can happen when you have just won two away games. Where we are guilty is that we had difficulties in the first half but then still went 1-0 up and we shouldn¹t have given it away from that. There will be changes to the team. I don’t believe we were thinking about Tuesday night, though.”

Interestingly, Arsene speaks about a size problem. What does that mean? Physically size or mental size? If there was a physical size problem, then why didn’t we play a taller player? Why has Djourou (our best pre-season performer) been overlooked? Will Arsene drop Gallas? He does say that he will make changes, but will he drop our captain, who has been at fault for pretty much every goal we’ve conceded this season!

When asked about the potential punishment for some of the players by being dropped, Arsene said:

“Punishment? No, you know sometimes you make changes because you consider the other team, you consider the balance of your team, sometimes because one player is not at his best. If a player or two do not play tomorrow it is not a punishment, it is just because of a rotation in the side. You cannot play every single game with the same 11 players.”

I honestly think you need to punish players by dropping them to the bench now and again. Hatrick aside, how has Adebayor merited being in the team at the expense of Bendtner? Experience? Maybe valid, but his performances and ability to stay onside have to be seriously questioned.

I’ll be at the game tomorrow and if I see another below par performance from Adebayor, I literally will pull out all my hair. I hate it when I see a lack of professionalism on the pitch and that’s what Ade showed us on Saturday. Anyway, it’s not the time to bash a player. Ade, I know you can do it, but I want you to show the desire and want. Play like you did last season. Starting tomorrow.

Arsene went on to speak about the goal we conceded

“I believe the goal we conceded where we are less guilty is the corner against Hull because it was a well-taken chance. Cousin is very tall and very good in the air. It was a perfect header and that can happen to anybody. You gain experience through the games. At the back is where we have experience because you cannot say with Clichy and Sagna and Kolo and Gallas that we lack experience. Will Kolo play in midfield? No, not at all. As for Vela, it’s difficult to go into any individual case. I believe Carlos Vela is a player of the squad and the whole squad will be used over the season. You cannot go from one team to the other and change 11 players because we just lost one game. I believe what is happening is that players have shown quality behind the first team and that is very interesting for the future of the Club.”

True, but when you see such a disappointing performance from your main striker (cite Ade) and such a great performance from an up and coming one (cite Vela), you can see where the fans are coming from. Arsene doesn’t have to change 11 players. But for the game against Hull, you could see in the first 45 minutes that Ade wasn’t up for the game. Would a half time Bendtner for Ade sub been so bad?

Arsene carried on:

“I believe the Champions League is a different game. We have learned from the Hull match that you need a Champions League focus in every game. If we are guilty of something it is that we couldn’t get our focus to the right level to take our chances. The analysis of the game shows that we had enough opportunities to win. On the other hand, they made 100 per cent of the few chances they had. So credit to them and damage to us. You have not to make too much of it. We lost a game we did not want to lose but we have enough strength inside the Club and inside the team to deal with that. It can happen but it cannot be repeated. I don’t think we needed to be woken up but it was a big disappointment because we felt that we had enough quality to win the game.”

Although, having said that, surely the Fulham game would have been the wake up call. Do we get 2 wins for every loss? If we continue in this vain, we will win 26 games, gain 78 points over the season but suffer 12 losses. Interesting facts. On 78 points, we won’t be champions.

Kolo has also been speaking, and apparently he is scared by the smaller teams…

“Against Man United everybody thinks it’s going to be a tight game but when you play against Hull it’s harder because you are expected to win and score in the first minute. But it doesn’t happen like that. I was scared against Hull because there are no easy games. We are professional players and when we go out we want to play well and win.”

Well, I won’t go into much more today. I’ll be back in the morning to review tomorrow night’s game.

< ![CDATA[That scoreline is the number of shots each side had. To give you an idea of where that stands in the scheme of things here’s some other weekend scores based on goal attempts

Wigan 10, Manchester Arab 11

Stoke 5 CSKA Fulham 14

Manchester B 32 Bolton 10

Aston V 12, Sunderland 9

Portsmouth 9 Tiny Totts 15

Everton 4, Liverpool Insolvency 11

Which tells us that mostly the team with the most goal attempts wins the game, and that in terms of goal attempts Arsenal were only beaten by an extraordinary high score from Manchester B - a score so high I really wonder if the stats are right. (certainly if these stats, which come from the Guardian are right, the most extraordinary thing is that Manchester B only got two goals).

But I want to make a broader point - which is that if we had got a tiny number of shots then clearly we would simply be not working as an attacking forward moving team. But we didn’t.

If you look at the same stats for the Fulham defeat the result was

Fulham 5 Arsenal 15

And overall this starts to tell us where the problem is. Converting those shots into goals. It’s not a midfield thing, nor is it a defensive thing. It is simply converting those shots into goals. It is, don’t do a Hleb, do a Henry.]]>

ManUtd

I’m a Man Utd fan but I want to talk about Hull, Yes I’m laughing at Arsenal but once all the laughing has died down I’m thinking about Phil Brown. Now we all reckoned because of the way Allardyce took Bolton in the top-10 in the Premier League consistently that we thought he was a world-class manager. Even Big Sam seemed to get it in his head with his Allardici comment. But after his Newcastle debacle we’re a bit confused. Indeed the thing that marked him out at Bolton was his brilliance when it came to bringing players to the club. At Newcastle his signings were terrible. He bought Smith for about £6m which says it all. So what happened at Bolton then? Whom was responsible for this golden period. Step forward Phil Brown! When I saw the buys he was making for Hull this summer it did start me wondering if he was the brains behind Bolton. I started telling people to watch out for Hull and do not predict them to finish bottom as I believed if any promoted teams were going to stay up it would be Hull. Everyone laughed at me but now with the season underway I’m more convinced than ever that Phil Brown is a footballing genius. Hull fans should be very very proud and grateful they have a very talented manager. My big fear for Hull fans is that if someone like Ramos is sacked at Spurs then Brown may be lured away by a club like that. Certainly if I was a chairman looking for a manager, Brown would be my first port of call. As someone mentioned in the mailbox earlier, Hull are definitely my 2nd team now. Which is funny because Bolton when they had Okocha, Djorkaeff, Campo and Tofting and legends like that certainly used to be. Again the common factor is Phil Brown.

Dan

Yeah Raval that was clear without the stats. You can see it with your own eyes watching a match that we are penetrating defences and overall having plenty of chances (generally close to the goal, i suspect man city had a fair amount of long rangers) It boils down to Adebeyour and RVP not hitting the back of the net. Although our midfield are prone to missing guilt edged oppertunities as well. Like i said already, Eduardo will fix this. Possibly Vela in the future as well.

http://kierandelaney.net/blog kierandelaney.net/blog

< ![CDATA[

And overall this starts to tell us where the problem is. Converting those shots into goals. It’s not a midfield thing, nor is it a defensive thing. It is simply converting those shots into goals. It is, don’t do a Hleb, do a Henry.

Of course its an issue with the defence. How many chances did Hull have and how many chances did they score?

Its all good and well suggesting the forwards should convert more chances (and yes they should, Adebayor in particular has hurt us with his wastfulness) but the defence should not concede soft goals. Yes the header from the corner was expertly taken, but why did Gallas and Adebayor stand and admire him rather than jumping with him and making the chance more difficult?

Gallas was at fault at Fulham and again on Saturday. Regardless of the strikers you can’t lose games if you don’t concede goals.]]>

Danny

Its true what you say Kieran about not losing without conceding, however had we scored one of the many chances when we were 1-0 up against Hull there would never have been any pressure on the defence. So i still think it was the fault of crap finishing, but of course a clean sheet is always good!

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